A cellular radio access network is a collection of cells that each includes at least one base station capable of transmitting and relaying signals to subscribers' wireless devices. A “cell” generally denotes a distinct area of a mobile network that utilizes a particular frequency or range of frequencies for transmission of data. A typical base station is a tower to which are affixed a number of antennas that transmit and receive the data over the particular frequency. Wireless devices, such as cellular or mobile phones, smart phones, camera phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptop computers, may initiate or otherwise transmit a signal at the designated frequency to the base station to initiate a call or data session and begin transmitting data.
Mobile networks convert cellular signals, e.g., Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) signals, Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signals or Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) signals, received at a base station from wireless devices into Internet protocol (IP) packets for transmission within packet-based networks. A number of standards have been proposed to facilitate this conversion and transmission of cellular signals to IP packets, such as a general packet radio service (GPRS) standardized by the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) Association, an evolution of Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE), mobile IP standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), as well as other standards proposed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GGP/2) and the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) forum.
A typical mobile service provider network, or “mobile network,” includes a core packet-switched network, a transport network, and one or more radio access networks. The core packet-switched network for the mobile network establishes logical connections, known as bearers, among the many service nodes on a path between a wireless device, attached to one of the radio access networks, and a packet data network (PDN). The service nodes then utilize the bearers to transport subscriber traffic exchanged between the wireless device and the PDN, which may include, for example, the Internet, an enterprise intranet, a layer 3 VPN, and a service provider's private network. Various PDNs provide a variety of packet-based data services to wireless devices to enable the wireless devices to exchange service data with application or other servers of the PDNs. In addition, while primarily described with respect to service providers and mobile service provider networks, many different types of entities, including enterprises and government agencies, may deploy a mobile network. Accordingly, the term “mobile network” may be used herein to encompass many different types of cellular network architectures and operators.
Mobile networks perform detailed and accurate monitoring of service usage so that proper charging information can be generated for potentially millions of customers in order to provide revenue for the service providers. A mobile network gateway collects charging information related to the external data network usage and to network resource usage, such as the amount of data categorized by quality of service (QoS), the user protocols, and the usage of the packet data protocol (PDP) address. However, the amount and granularity of data that may be collected is typically limited by the capabilities of the mobile network gateway. In addition, the collected data is typically used to manage individual subscriber access (e.g., denying a subscriber access to the requested service in the absence of adequate credit).